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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

[Editor’s note: This post by Alan November, written
exclusively for eSchool Media, is part of a series of upcoming articles
by this notable education thought leader. Check back soon for the next
must-read post!]

"Here are three essential lessons in effective teaching from David Malan’s enormously popular CS50 course." summarizes eSchool News.

Photo: eSchool News

Photo: David J. Malan

Harvard professor David Malan has managed to pull off a neat trick:
His Computer Science 50 course is the most popular course at both
Harvard and Yale. By examining his success, we can learn some important lessons about effective teaching.CS50 assumes no prior knowledge or skill in computer programming, yet
it’s extremely demanding. Despite its rigor, CS50 regularly attracts
thousands of students each year. While some aspire to become software
engineers, others enroll just to experience the course.Why is Professor Malan’s course so popular, even with students who
don’t plan a career in computer science—and even though it requires a
lot of work? Here are three keys to Malan’s effective teaching that I
think all schools everywhere should apply, from K-12 schools to colleges and universities.

Strengthen the social side of learning.

Teach students to self-assess.

Provide a public audience to inspire students to invent.

Imagine teaching a course with 800+ students at Harvard and another
400+ students at Yale with an extremely high level of rigor and
creativity. The course is available for credit at either university, and
anyone around the world can take a noncredit version at no cost through the open courseware platform edX.

My son, Dan, took the course. When he first signed up for CS50, it is
fair to say he was not in the habit of choosing the most demanding
courses on campus. But Dr. Malan’s unique learning culture and sense of
responsibility placed on the students helped Dan to discover a passion
for “learning how to learn” and thinking about design—skills he can
apply to manage his learning in any situation, from other courses to his
professional growth. Two years later, he is still on fire—and he will
graduate in May to pursue a career in computer science.I was so intrigued by the impact CS50 had on my son that I started to
explore Malan’s keys to effective teaching that we can export to any
educational setting. After many conversations with Professor Malan and
Dan, I have identified at least three processes that we can apply across
the curriculum at all grade levels.Read more... Source: eSchool News

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About Me

Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.